For Political Radio Ads
Your Theme Must Be
Important to Your Voters!
Now, if you’re about to tell me that your theme is you, and how great of a job you’re going to do when you get in office then maybe you should try to do something else other than running for office…
Number one: People vote for people that they like! Number two: People vote for people that they think are going to make a difference to the issues that they care about! Beyond that, there’s a lot of other little reasons that have nothing to do with what you will do while in office. They’re more interested in how you look, what you wear, what you say, the things you are involved in in your life, etc., so you need a theme that people know and care about and feel that you are going to be the solution to all of that! Does that make sense?
When campaigning for an office, a candidate must create a theme that connects emotionally with the needed voter base! This theme defines what the campaign stands for! So when you’re creating a political radio ad theme for your campaign, you must honestly describe the candidate, or the ballot measure strengths and weaknesses, who should vote for them and why. Your theme needs to connect emotionally to the voter! I can’t say that enough! What they care about, not what is big on your list!
Really shape your theme around the voter’s most critical issues! Take any negatives from your position and turn them into a positive! Don’t tell us that you don’t have any negatives because everybody has them depending on the perspective of the voters, right? If you are a Republican running for an office and you get past the primary, your best bet is to try to find the fence-sitting Democrats, Libertarians, or Independents, whoever they may be, because you’ve already won your party’s vote! The same message applies to Democrats who win the primaries and now need to convince fence-sitting Republicans that they are the better choice!
You need to keep on saying the things in your messaging and political radio ads that won the primary for you!
A great way to start writing your political radio ad script is to write out your “stump speech.” This is a speech that defines you as a candidate. You’ve all heard of the elevator speech which is the 30 second amazing pitch about your topic that convinces people (in 30 seconds or less) that you hold the answer to their problems! And I do mean 30 seconds or less… If you can’t get it down to a short speech then you’re in the wrong business!
You have to work within the system as it stands today, and don’t think that you’re going to redefine existing habits. You have to work within voter habits. What do I mean about voter habits? I mean that someone always votes Democrat because they’re a Democrat or they vote Republican because they’re Republican, etc. Somebody always votes for the person they like or they like the way they dress. You’re not going to change these factors. So you need to have a theme that will resonate with voters pre-primary and post.
You can’t brand one message leading up to the primary and then change it to pull in the fence-sitting voters later. Your base that helped you win the primary will think that you betrayed them and you look like a fake to those you’re trying to win over post-primary. The beauty of radio is that you can change your advertisement within 24 hours or less. But you don’t want to have to scramble around to try to re-brand your message at the last minute. So make sure that you’re not having to change your main campaign theme mid-election cycle. Or worse, right before the final elections in November!
Make sure that your theme centers around a topic that is already being talked about in news media, social media, TV, etc. Remember the best political themes are short, catchy and memorable!
If you have a mission that is unknown to the world and you’re planning on “revealing” the bad habits or the crimes of your opponents that nobody knows about with your campaign advertising, don’t use that as your main theme.
Your unknown mission or “big reveal” will cost you more money to educate the populace about it and then even more money to tell them in advertising that you are the answer to this problem. It could, at the least, confuse voters and keep people from focusing on you as the candidate instead of the big issue you just revealed to them. Make sense?
Come up with a theme for your campaign radio advertising. Make your stump speech first because it will totally define you and your candidacy! Make sure to take the time to craft your theme/stump speech carefully! If you need further information feel free to get in touch with us.
800-208-7154
By Sean Pearce and Pete Miller
